Doesn't Mean What You Think
by lunaflore
Summary: A look into River's thoughts and feelings during the beginning of Objects in Space episode of Firefly.


Serenity just passed a moon. River didn't see it happen, but she knows it did.

She's in her room, in her bed. It's late at night. But she can't fall asleep.

Granted, it's always night in space. The common ways of separating night from day, morning from evening don't apply to life on spaceships. Daytime is when the natural light released by a sun illuminates a planet's surface. And they are currently far away from any celestial bodies known as suns. Right now, their ship is gliding through the vacuum and unending darkness created by the outer space.

Yes still, it is night-time in River's world. Her limbs are tired and her head is heavy. She knows it's time to curl up and drift away into sleep.

But she can't. Her eyes are tightly shut, yes, but she keeps hearing voices. All of the ship members' voices are crammed together in her brain. River hears them all at once. She can't distinguish anything specific. They're all part of a hissing, crackling static.

Until one comes through clearly.

'We're all just floating...' The voice says.

And with that, River's eyes snap open. It's like the speaker was in the room with her. She looks around, alarmed. No one's there. Only she, a girl alone in her room, lucklessly trying to fall asleep.

There is, however, laughter coming from the other side of the door. She decides to follow the laughter. See where it takes her. A river flows because it has to. It doesn't know that in the end it will be swallowed by the sea.

She walks out of her room. Her feet are bare. She can feel the coldness of metal upon which she is walking. It's a good thing. Keeps her in touch. Keeps her sensing. She's in the passenger dorm now. Simon and Kaylee are there. Lying on the couch. They are the ones laughing. Kaylee's feet are also bare. Simon is telling her an old memory. From study days.

'…so you had to be naked,' Kaylee says.

'Naked, yes, and on top of the statue of Hypocrates, and… Can you just picture me?' Asks Simon.

'Naked? I'll have to conjure up. It'll be tough.'

They are laughing once again. River can see that they're in good moods. Kaylee's toes touch Simon's chin. The action looks affectionate and intimate, River perceives. Simon and Kaylee's liveliness makes River feel better. Like she is close to a fire and is feeling its warmth.

'So the feds came?' Kaylee asks, wanting to know what happened next.

'There were no feds,' Simon replies. 'Until I started singing,' he adds after a pause.

Kaylee laughs, this time harder than before.

'Oh no! What'd you sing?'

But River doesn't hear the answer to that. Because suddenly Simon and Kaylee are completely different. Both are looking at her seriously; their laughter gone.

'I would be there right now,' Simon says coldly.

And Kaylee, she just looks at River with wordless resentment and accusation.

River blinks, wondering if that actually happened. Did Simon really just tell her that she took him away from the place where he belonged in? She knows that she tore him away from the life and career that he had planned for himself. And yet Simon had always denied having any regrets about that.

And sure enough, the two of them have already returned to laughing, returned to not even noticing that River's there too. It was like the moment of coldness was inserted between the moments of joy. There was a definite discrepancy.

'It was either that or the national anthem. Reports vary,' Simon says. His voice has returned to being a happy one.

So that's true then, it didn't happen for real. It was just another trick played on her by her troubled mind. But still, she saw it and heard it. For her it was real. And so River is unnerved once again. She thinks that it's better she leaves. It's better she is somewhere else.

She turns around and walks up the stairs. The bareness of her feet brushes against their metallic bumpiness. She walks through the ship, touching their walls as she moves ahead. Sometimes she likes Serenity more than the people on it. She prefers the midbulk transport, standard radion-accelerator core, class code 03-K64, firefly class spaceship to people. The ship doesn't invade her mind with its uninvited thoughts, feelings, or memories.

She walks into the dining room. Book and Jayne are there. They're talking about what Shepherds do if they're not allowed to get married. But that is of zero interest to River. Nothing that they actually say is of any interest to her. She only absorbs what is not put into speech.

'I got stupid. The money was too good.' – Is what she gets from Jayne.

She glances at him, puzzled. There's guilt in those words, she discerns that. But also something that indicates that he would do it again, given that the chance presented itself.

'I don't give half a hump if you're innocent or not! So where does that put you?'

That one's from Shepherd. River doesn't know what to think anymore. Does he mean that even if she's innocent, she's still guilty?

She doesn't want to stay here either. She doesn't want to hear any other admissions that would leave her confounded, add to her unsettledness. She heads toward the foredeck instead.

When she reaches, she sees that Zoe and Wash are in the bridge area. Zoe is sitting on her husband's lap. She is kissing him; her hands are buried in his hair. River wants to walk further, but she's caught in their energy. She's awash in it. To her it comes like the sounds of the ocean. She hears waves breaking and foaming. Two people swimming in their personal ocean of passion.

It's all too much for River. She forces herself to get away. Gathers all her might and runs. She runs down, into the cargo bay. Maybe that's the place where she'll be able to be alone.

But then she's in it, and she knows instantly that she won't find any calm and solitude in there either. Because that's where Mal and Inara are. Standing next to Inara's shuttle, talking. Discussing Inara's imminent leaving. They are speaking quietly, but their inner turmoil only enlarges the ocean within River.

'Only thing you're gonna find in New Melbourne is fish and fish related activities,' Mal says. 'Unless you got an overwhelming urge to gut sturgeon, and who hasn't, occasionally…'

'But it's a layover point for almost every planet this side of the system, and I could... I just don't want to draw this out,' Inara utters.

Then they are quiet for a few seconds.

'You decided when you're gonna tell the others?' Mal asks, when the pause is over.

'I...,' she starts, but her voice falters. 'No,' she then says. 'I appreciate your not saying anything.'

Then Inara looks at River. Right into River's eyes.

'I'm a big girl. Just tell me,' she says, her voice insistent, but also vulnerable in that typical Inara way.

'None of it means a damn thing,' says Mal.

River knows the implication behind these words. Inara wants Mal to tell her not to go. Mal believes that telling her that is not going to change a damn thing. Mal and Inara are rarely able to tell each other what they really feel. But why should that affect River? Why must she carry the weight of their untold words, unexpressed emotions? Why can't she just be left alone?

Maybe other people will never leave her alone. Maybe they're River's enemies. She was trained to believe that all people were foes. That they must be destroyed. That's what they fed to her at The Academy. But that wasn't the truth. The Academy brainwashed her. They wanted to use her for their own good. To improve her combat skills until she would become virtually unbeatable. To widen her intuition until it would no longer be intuition, but a full-fledged ability to read minds. All that to make the perfect assassin out of her.

But then Simon came for her and saved her from it. He ended her torture.

But what if The Academy opened her eyes to the truth, she is now thinking. Led her to her real purpose? What if being an assassin had been her destiny all along? These thoughts are heavy, so heavy they could sink her. The sounds of ocean intensify. They add to her confusion. She doesn't know what's true, doesn't know what's right. She just wants to escape. To be free of the minds of others and her own.

So she runs down the stairs, in jumbled leaps. She runs until she is on the floor of the ship's main area. No one else is there. Does that mean that she can be alone at last? She starts to walk ahead freely, she's feeling better already, and then… she steps onto something.

River looks down. She sees that it's a branch. A tree's branch, all wooden and natural.

And then suddenly, it's a fall's day. A cold day. Wind breezes are flying under River's clothes. They are tousling her already uncombed hair some more. It's a fall's day and she's walking through a forest. The leaves have turned orange, dropped, and are now covering the ground. They are rustling underneath her feet, as she takes steps in her warm, heavy boots.

River is strolling until she sees a branch on the ground. She stops and picks it up. The branch's purity amazes her. The branch is immaculate. It's completely, utterly harmless. It's just an object. An object in space. It doesn't mean what you think. Everything is just an object until you use it, until you define it, until you judge it as being good or bad.

And then she hears screams and commands. And the fall's day and the stroll through the forest disappear in a fraction of a second.

'River you know that's not to be touched!'

'Everybody just be real calm already!'

'Get it away from her!'

'Just put it down!'

River is back to being in the ship's main area. And all members of the crew are there with her.

'What were you thinking? Where did you get ahold of this?' Simon, who is the closest to her, asks.

River doesn't get his meaning. And then looks down at her hand. There's a gun in it. She's holding a gun. She's holding a gun and pointing it at Kaylee.

'It was in my hand,' River answers.

She can only say what's already obvious. She doesn't know where it came from. A minute ago she was holding a branch, and now she's holding a deadly weapon. She must have taken the gun while she was holding the branch. But how?

Mal is also here. He takes the gun from her and inspects it.

'Fully loaded, safety off,' he says, matter-of-factly. 'This here's a recipe for unpleasantness, does she understand that?'

'She understands. She doesn't comprehend,' River says, slightly offended.

She's slighted that the captain doesn't follow. It was only an object. It was just an object in space before everyone started panicking and made it turn into a gun.

'Well, I'm glad we've made that distinction. No touching guns, okay?' He says.

'No touching,' River repeats.

And then she's upset. Upset because she only wanted peace and quiet, but once again become the center of the crew's attention. She only wanted to ponder the meaning of objects in space, and do so while away from everyone. But instead she drew everyone to her once more.

'River,' Simon says her name softly, comfortingly. He has correctly read her frustration.

But she doesn't want to let him comfort her. The anxious thoughts and energy of everyone else is too loud, too perturbing. The jumpy static is back in her head, and its even louder than before.

'It's getting very very crowded!' River yells, while running away.

While she is dashing, she knows that everyone is looking at her, bewildered by her newest display of irrationality.


End file.
